


Enter Careen

by MandoKain



Series: Aliit [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Found Family, Gen, pilots and slicers and gunners oh my, the Click
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 11:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20191612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MandoKain/pseuds/MandoKain
Summary: Cain, our little green twi’lek friend, has a new girlfriend, Xhona, a purple Togruta with a green crest, and they’ve since picked up an ARC musician named Bard. Xhona, however, has a friend Cain needs to meet.





	Enter Careen

“He’s a pilot.”

“Yup.”

“Named _Careen_?”

“Yup.”

“How badly does he swerve?”

“...He lives up to the name.”

Cain was quiet for a minute. “And he’s your best friend, who is helping us find a new ship.”

“Yep. He is really good at ships.”

“All right,” Cain sighed. Xhona rubbed their back.

“Don’t worry, babe. You’ll like him.” She kissed Cain’s head, and they blushed. “He’s your type.”

“My type?”

“Yeah.” Xhona was grinning slyly and Cain wasn’t sure how to feel.

“What type is that?” they asked warily.

“You’ll see.”

When Careen arrived, he was wearing a helmet and flight suit. He and Xhona shook hands in a complicated manner and hugged before Careen took off the helmet. Cain immediately brightened. Xhona had been right, at least. He was their ‘type.’

“Hi. You’re Cain, yeah?”

“Yeah. Nice to meet you, Careen.” The two exchanged a Mandalorian hand clasp, and Careen nodded approvingly. His hair was shorter on the sides and a little longer on top, a bit like Punk from the Smokies, and he had an easy smile that brought light to the familiar face and made Cain smile back.

“Nice to meet you too,” the clone nodded back. He tucked his helmet under his arm the way Cain had seen a thousand thousand times. “Hope you’re treating Xhona right. Hey!” She’d elbowed him. “What? I’m allowed to look out for my best friend’s wellbeing.”

“Cain is an absolute sweetheart, I’ll have you know,” Xhona told him. “Be nice. I picked them.” Cain was blushing, but nodded sheepishly.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Careen,” they promised. The brief glance they cast Xhona was adoring.

_Click._

“Good. Come on, I’ll show you the ships. Xho, you coming?”

“I’m gonna look for accessories to wire into whatever you two pick. Blink and I can configure them together.”

“Oh, no,” Cain mumbled, as their Togruta sweetheart walked away.

“Blink?”

“Blink is the RC. He takes things apart and then puts them back together, not always in their original configuration. If the RC and the hacker install things on our ship...”

“I see where you’re going with that. Hey, at least they’re friends, though,” Careen pointed out. Xhona had obviously told him about Cain and their team. “Could be worse.”

“Technological sabotage? Don’t,” Cain advised, and Careen laughed.

“Fair enough. All right, let’s take a look at our options.”

He and Cain spent a good while talking about and looking over the ships. They finally picked one that was relatively small, but had rooms for a dozen, each individual.

“This is nice. Good shields, gun emplacements, and a solid hyperdrive.”

“I like that everyone gets their own room. Might be handy.”

“And we have enough rooms to pick up more crew,” Careen nodded. The little Twi’lek was looking at him, half curious, half delighted. “What?”

“Nothing. Just... ‘we.’”

“Well, you ain’t gettin’ Xhona without me. Sorry, them’s the rules.”

“I’m more than happy with those rules,” Cain assured him. “We can use a pilot. Blink and I and Xho can fly, but none of us is specifically trained as one, and your experience will definitely come in handy.” Careen beamed.

“It’ll be nice to work with brothers again,” he admitted. “But I’m not calling you Commander, right?”

“Please don’t,” Cain agreed. “I really don’t want to be called that anyway. Just Cain is fine.”

“I’m good with that,” Careen smiled back. He nodded as he looked around the ship.

“I’m sold.”

“Me too.”

“Let’s go grab the others then and have them check it, but I’m happy.” Cain led the way back to where everyone else was, near the New Dawn. Blink was in disguise, Bard was wearing a headscarf, and Recoil was just sitting on a box. He waved as they approached, and Xhona, sitting by Blink, nudged him. She didn’t need to.

“Hey Cain. Hey vod. You’re Careen then?”

“I am.”

“Blink. That’s Bard and that’s Recoil.”

“You’re the RC?”

“That I am,” Blink nodded.

“What unit you with?” Recoil asked as he hopped down from the box.

“124th.”

“We’re picking them up from all over, aren’t we?” Bard remarked.

“Nice to meet you, vod.” He was grinning again. He usually was, when he didn’t have the bes’bev in his mouth.

“You too.” They shook. The other two did as well. Xhona was looking around at them all, and Recoil put an arm around her shoulders.

“Welcome to the crew, officially,” he nodded, to her and Careen.

The pilot beamed. “Been a while since I had one of those.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Xhona jabbed.

“No offence, Xho, but you’re hardly a crew by yourself.”

“Fair cop.”

“Did he do the thing?” Blink asked Cain quietly. They nodded.

“Is it just something about me?”

“Yeah, basically,” Blink shrugged. He couldn’t exactly explain what, but Cain had this sense about them. You could trust them, they were likeable as well as adorable, and certain people just... adopted them. They slipped into your heart and settled there, and any clone that felt that, saw that, how much Cain trusted and just _cared_, would love them.

“Come on,” Careen told them,

“Cain and I have found a ship we like, we want you all to take a look. It’s got a dozen individual rooms and plenty of room for technological kriffing around.”

“Can we give it big guns? I wanna give it big guns,” Recoil said as they walked. Cain rolled their eyes, smiling, and slid their hand into Xhona’s.

“You’ve got a good family,” the Togruta murmured.

“Yeah,” Cain murmured back, smiling softly. “I do.”

“Even if your brother is too tall for his own good.”

“_Right_?”

Two hours later, another ship was parked in the New Dawn’s hangar deck. It was half the size of the Chameleon, and was currently being taken apart from the inside by a hacker and a wire-jockey RC who were happily chatting away, but it was theirs, and it would be home.

**Author's Note:**

> The ‘brother’ Xhona mentions is Kell from part 1, he’s 6’3”. The New Dawn is Kell and Black Company’s massive freighter, and houses them, several non-clone crew, and 80-odd clone rescues. The Chameleon is Smoke Squad’s ship (you’ll meet them later).


End file.
